In recent years, there has been an enormous increase in the number of studies examining mind wandering. Although participants' reports of mind wandering are often assumed to largely reflect ...spontaneous, unintentional thoughts, many researchers' conceptualizations of mind wandering have left open the possibility that at least some of these reports reflect deliberate, intentional thought. Critically, however, in most investigations on the topic, researchers have not separately assessed each type of mind wandering; instead, they have measured mind wandering as a unitary construct, thereby conflating intentional and unintentional types. We report the first compelling evidence that an experimental manipulation can have qualitatively different effects on intentional and unintentional types of mind wandering. This result provides clear evidence that researchers interested in understanding mind wandering need to consider the distinction between unintentional and intentional occurrences of this phenomenon.
Mind wandering seems to be a prototypical feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, an important emerging distinction of mind-wandering types hinges on whether a given ...episode of mind wandering reflects a failure of executive control (spontaneous mind wandering) or the engagement of controlled processes for internal processing (deliberate mind wandering). Here we distinguish between spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering and test the hypothesis that symptoms of ADHD are associated with the former but not the latter. We assessed ADHD symptomatology and everyday levels of deliberate and spontaneous mind wandering in two large non-clinical samples (
Ns
= 1,354). In addition, to provide converging evidence, we examined rates of deliberate and spontaneous mind wandering in a clinically diagnosed ADHD sample. Results provide clear evidence that spontaneous, but not deliberate, mind wandering is a central feature of ADHD symptomatology at both the clinical and non-clinical level. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding both ADHD and mind wandering.
A primary aim of mind-wandering research has been to understand its influence on task performance. While this research has typically highlighted the costs of mind wandering, a few studies have ...suggested that mind wandering may be beneficial in certain situations. Perhaps the most-touted benefit is that mind wandering during a creative-incubation interval facilitates creative thinking. This finding has played a critical role in the development of accounts of the adaptive value of mind wandering and its functional role, as well as potential mechanisms of mind wandering. Thus, a demonstration of the replicability of this important finding is warranted. Here, we attempted to conceptually replicate results of a highly cited laboratory-based experiment supporting this finding. However, across 2 studies (N = 443), we found no evidence for the claim that mind wandering during a creative-incubation interval facilitates a form of creativity associated with divergent thinking. We suggest that our failed conceptual replication stems from an inadequate characterization of mind wandering (task-unrelated thought), and that there are good reasons to think that task-unrelated thought is unlikely to be causally related to creativity. Our results cast doubt on the claim that task-unrelated thought during an incubation interval enhances divergent creativity while also offering some prescriptions for how future research might further elucidate the cognitive benefits of mind wandering.
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•Meditation prevents mind wandering from increasing.•Meditation ameliorates performance disruption during off-task thoughts.•Mindfulness training promotes an attentional focus in the here and now.
...Mind wandering can be costly, especially when we are engaged in attentionally demanding tasks. Preliminary studies suggest that mindfulness can be a promising antidote for mind wandering, albeit the evidence is mixed. To better understand the exact impact of mindfulness on mind wandering, we had a sample of highly anxious undergraduate students complete a sustained-attention task during which off-task thoughts including mind wandering were assessed. Participants were randomly assigned to a meditation or control condition, after which the sustained-attention task was repeated. In general, our results indicate that mindfulness training may only have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals. Meditation prevented the increase of mind wandering over time and ameliorated performance disruption during off-task episodes. In addition, we found that the meditation intervention appeared to promote a switch of attentional focus from the internal to present-moment external world, suggesting important implications for treating worrying in anxious populations.
•We review cognitive mechanisms of brain networks supporting creative cognition.•Mechanisms include memory retrieval, response inhibition, and internal attention.•We also review individual ...differences work on brain networks and creative ability.•Default and executive network connectivity predicts individual creative ability.•Highly creative people are marked by flexible and variable network dynamics.
Network neuroscience research is providing increasing specificity on the contribution of large-scale brain networks to creative cognition. Here, we summarize recent experimental work examining cognitive mechanisms of network interactions and correlational studies assessing network dynamics associated with individual creative abilities. Our review identifies three cognitive processes related to network interactions during creative performance: goal-directed memory retrieval, prepotent-response inhibition, and internally-focused attention. Correlational work using prediction modeling indicates that functional connectivity between networks — particularly the executive control and default networks — can reliably predict an individual’s creative thinking ability. We discuss potential directions for future network neuroscience, including assessing creative performance in specific domains and using brain stimulation to test causal hypotheses regarding network interactions and cognitive mechanisms of creative thought.
Researchers of mind wandering frequently assume that (a) participants are motivated to do well on the tasks they are given, and (b) task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) that occur during task performance ...reflect unintentional, unwanted thoughts that occur despite participants' best intentions to maintain task-focus. Given the relatively boring and tedious nature of most mind-wandering tasks, however, there is the possibility that some participants have little motivation to do well on such tasks, and that this lack of motivation might in turn result in increases specifically in intentional TUTs. In the present study, we explored these possibilities, finding that individuals reporting lower motivation to perform well on a sustained-attention task reported more intentional relative to unintentional TUTs compared with individuals reporting higher motivation. Interestingly, our results indicate that the extent to which participants engage in intentional versus unintentional TUTs does not differentially relate to performance: both types of off-task thought were found to be equally associated with performance decrements. Participants with low levels of task-motivation also engaged in more overall TUTs, however, and this increase in TUTs was associated with greater performance decrements. We discuss these findings in the context of the literature on mind wandering, highlighting the importance of assessing the intentionality of TUTs and motivation to perform well on tasks assessing mind wandering.
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► Show that both religious and paranormal belief can be predicted by cognitive style. ► Findings are independent of cognitive ability and demographic variables. ► Cognitive style also predicted the ...type of God belief/unbelief.
An analytic cognitive style denotes a propensity to set aside highly salient intuitions when engaging in problem solving. We assess the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated with a history of questioning, altering, and rejecting (i.e., unbelieving) supernatural claims, both religious and paranormal. In two studies, we examined associations of God beliefs, religious engagement (attendance at religious services, praying, etc.), conventional religious beliefs (heaven, miracles, etc.) and paranormal beliefs (extrasensory perception, levitation, etc.) with performance measures of cognitive ability and analytic cognitive style. An analytic cognitive style negatively predicted both religious and paranormal beliefs when controlling for cognitive ability as well as religious engagement, sex, age, political ideology, and education. Participants more willing to engage in analytic reasoning were less likely to endorse supernatural beliefs. Further, an association between analytic cognitive style and religious engagement was mediated by religious beliefs, suggesting that an analytic cognitive style negatively affects religious engagement via lower acceptance of conventional religious beliefs. Results for types of God belief indicate that the association between an analytic cognitive style and God beliefs is more nuanced than mere acceptance and rejection, but also includes adopting less conventional God beliefs, such as Pantheism or Deism. Our data are consistent with the idea that two people who share the same cognitive ability, education, political ideology, sex, age and level of religious engagement can acquire very different sets of beliefs about the world if they differ in their propensity to think analytically.
Highly motivated students often exhibit better academic performance than less motivated students. However, to date, the specific cognitive mechanisms through which motivation increases academic ...achievement are not well understood. Here we explored the possibility that mind wandering mediates the relation between motivation and academic performance, and additionally, we examined possible mediation by both
intentional
and
unintentional
forms of mind wandering. We found that participants reporting higher motivation to learn in a lecture-based setting tended to engage in less mind wandering, and that this decrease in mind wandering was in turn associated with greater retention of the lecture material. Critically, we also found that the influence of motivation on retention was mediated by both intentional and unintentional types of mind wandering. Not only do the present results advance our theoretical understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relation between motivation and academic achievement, they also provide insights into possible methods of intervention that may be useful in improving student retention in educational settings.
We explored the possibility that increasing participants’ motivation to perform well on a focal task can reduce mind wandering. Participants completed a sustained-attention task either with standard ...instructions (normal motivation), or with instructions informing them that they could be excused from the experiment early if they achieved a certain level of performance (higher motivation). Throughout the task, we assessed rates of mind wandering (both intentional and unintentional types) via thought probes. Results showed that the motivation manipulation led to significant reductions in both intentional and unintentional mind wandering as well as improvements in task performance. Most critically, we found that our simple motivation manipulation led to a dramatic reduction in probe-caught mind-wandering rates (49%) compared to a control condition (67%), which suggests the utility of motivation-based methods to reduce people’s propensity to mind-wander.
Wandering in Both Mind and Body Carriere, Jonathan S. A; Seli, Paul; Smilek, Daniel
Canadian journal of experimental psychology,
03/2013, Volume:
67, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Anecdotal reports suggest that during periods of inattention or mind wandering, people tend to experience increased fidgeting. In four studies, we examined whether individual differences in the ...tendency to be inattentive and to mind wander in everyday life are related to the tendency to make spontaneous and involuntary movements (i.e., to fidget). To do so, we developed self-report measures of spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering, as well as a self-report scale to index fidgeting. In addition, we used several existing self-report measures of inattentiveness, attentional control, and memory failures. Across our studies, a series of multiple regression analyses indicated that fidgeting was uniquely predicted by inattentiveness and spontaneous mind wandering but not by other related factors, including deliberate mind wandering, attentional control, and memory failures. As a result, we suggest that only spontaneously wandering thoughts are related to a wandering body.
Des rapports isolés suggèrent que durant des moments d'inattention ou de rêverie, les gens tendent davantage à présenter de l'agitation nerveuse. Dans quatre études, les auteurs ont cherché à déterminer les différences individuelles en ce qui a trait à la tendance à être inattentif ou à s'adonner à la rêverie dans le quotidien et si celle-ci était reliée à la tendance à faire des mouvements spontanés et involontaires (c'est-à-dire, à faire preuve d'agitation nerveuse). Pour ce faire, ils ont établi des mesures autorapportées de moments de rêverie spontanée et volontaire, ainsi qu'une échelle pour l'autoévaluation de l'agitation nerveuse. En outre, ils se sont servis de mesures autorapportées existantes pour l'inattention, la maîtrise attentionnelle et les manquements de la mémoire. Pour l'ensemble des études, des analyses de régression multiple ont révélé que seules l'inattention et la rêverie spontanée permettaient de prévoir l'agitation nerveuse, mais non les autres facteurs connexes, comme la rêverie volontaire, la maîtrise attentionnelle et les manquements de la mémoire. Les auteurs concluent alors que seul un esprit vagabond est associé à des gestes involontaires.
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